I had all my orders placed for my HTPC when I was informed by one vendor (who'll remain nameless) after they returned from Christmas break that an item "in stock" does not mean that they actually "have" the item, merely that they could try to find one if they had an order!

So my plan to use the Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mobo with Intel E8500 cpu is out.

Since I was looking for a mobo with on-board graphics I was leaning towards the Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H (AMD 780G chipset) and the AMD X2 4850e cpu (because it looks efficient and cool). Can't seem to find any supply for the cpu however!

Anybody know of a source for the 4850e, or have a recommendation for an equable cpu (or mobo/cpu combo)?

i'm guessing that the 4850e is now discontinued looking at whats available from wholesalers e.g, http://bdt.co.nz/computer/group.aspx?cat=6436. Maybe someone has one in a retail store somewhere still. The 5000 is available and this forum post seems to indicate that there isnt much difference between them (although more heat was pointed out)

So my plan to use the Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mobo with Intel E8500 cpu is out

The AMD would be a lot cheaper than the E8500 CPU and i', not sure why you would buy that specific motherboard anyway - its GPU is not capable of h.264 acceleration iirc. Better motherboards would likely be the GA-EG41MF-S2H (intel 4500 GPU) or GA-E7AUM-DS2H (NVidia 9400 GPU) if you wanted onboard. Otherwise a mobo with no onboard GPU and a cheap 8400/8500/8600 nVidia card to go in it.

The choice of the AMD board (GA-MA78GPM-DS2H) with the Radeon GPU may also be problematic - people here have indicated a lot of problems with ATI and H.264 acceleration. Perhaps, again, look for a board without the GPU and get a add-in nvidia card.

P.S. on my HTPC i found that it ran cooler with an add-in 8400GS than it did when using the onboard 6150 GPU. Probably due to the larger heatsink and more airflow over the graphics card

Regs: i'm guessing that the 4850e is now discontinued looking at whats available from wholesalers e.g, http://bdt.co.nz/computer/group.aspx?cat=6436. Maybe someone has one in a retail store somewhere still. The 5000 is available and this forum post seems to indicate that there isnt much difference between them (although more heat was pointed out)

So my plan to use the Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R mobo with Intel E8500 cpu is out

The AMD would be a lot cheaper than the E8500 CPU and i', not sure why you would buy that specific motherboard anyway - its GPU is not capable of h.264 acceleration iirc. Better motherboards would likely be the GA-EG41MF-S2H (intel 4500 GPU) or GA-E7AUM-DS2H (NVidia 9400 GPU) if you wanted onboard. Otherwise a mobo with no onboard GPU and a cheap 8400/8500/8600 nVidia card to go in it.

The choice of the AMD board (GA-MA78GPM-DS2H) with the Radeon GPU may also be problematic - people here have indicated a lot of problems with ATI and H.264 acceleration. Perhaps, again, look for a board without the GPU and get a add-in nvidia card.

P.S. on my HTPC i found that it ran cooler with an add-in 8400GS than it did when using the onboard 6150 GPU. Probably due to the larger heatsink and more airflow over the graphics card

Some good points Regs.The radeon can be a problem for onboard graphics, I am building my own HTPC with a GA-MA78GM-DS2 (older board) so we'll see what kind of issues I get and if they can be corrected.The 4850e has never been sold in NZ to my knowledge, you basically have to source them from offshore (aussie sell them).I'm not sure why that particular CPU has been left from our shelves, but it's annoying as I want one myself

The heat point is a good one too, I guess you have to weigh up system cooling and functionality over the added increase in power and/or noise. I'm trying to get my HTPC to run on as little power and as quiet as possible, so I'll try the onboard radeon 3200 and see if it performs okay. If not, I'll shell out for a passively cooled graphics card and see how that goes.Horses for courses I guess, the main thing is a stable system!

of note i have a vaio with gma4500hd which is supposed to do h.264/avc but must say i havent been able to make it decode more than 576i/p on dvbviewer or windows 7 media center. so unless anyone else has managed to make it work for nz dvb-t i'd say otherwise?

of note i have a vaio with gma4500hd which is supposed to do h.264/avc but must say i havent been able to make it decode more than 576i/p on dvbviewer or windows 7 media center. so unless anyone else has managed to make it work for nz dvb-t i'd say otherwise?

i have one of the intel dg45 boards in a box on the floor and havent gotten around to giving it a crack yet... maybe if it rains all weekend i'll give it a whirl and see if i get any further :-)

I'd still suggest that the mobo with gpu will probably run hotter than an add-in video card with giant heatsink though.... and the nvidia cards are so cheap and no hassle so, for now, it seems like the better option

kiwijunglist: +1 on not recommending the onboard HD3200 (780G) because it doesn't like hardware deinterlacing H264 (ie TV3 1080i)

What board are you using? Currently I'm using a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H rev 1.1 (780G with onboard HD3200) and currently I'm not having issues (using MediaPortal). In saying that I haven't done a large amount of testing yet as have only been watching freeview for testing over the past 2 days while I try and get my remote working for mediaportal.

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